Perusing Pooping Piping Plovers at Gulf State Park

We are staying two full days at Gulf State Park, in Gulf Shores, Alabama.  Our good friends Nan and George Finlayson recommended it to us as we work our way across the Gulf Coast to see them this month.  It covers 6,500 acres or a little over 10 square miles, including beautiful, wide white sand beaches.  With the beaches, it has seven ecological zones, including marshland, boggy tea-colored streams, pine forests, and three spring-fed, fresh-water lakes: Lake Shelby, Middle Lake and Little Lake.  We plan to paddle the lakes tomorrow, so that's all we'll say today about the lakes.  The park's facilities, including cabins and a casino, were built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps. The park itself opened in 1939 under state authority.

So about the pooping piping plover...

Midway during our outing today, we were walking along the beach, and this cheeky little piping plover raced up from the water, right in front of us, stopped in the pristine, white sand...and POOPED.  Right in front of us.  Then the little upstart raced back to the margin of the Gulf and continued its search for bugs and other food:

 But we get ahead of ourselves.

After letting Baxter and Ruby out for their morning walk, and having our breakfast, we decided to bicycle around the park and see what we could see.  We headed from our campground, up on the trail around Shelby Lake.  Interestingly, it looked like the modified surface of a road, with the lanes not quite marking the proper lanes of the bike trail:

As we headed from our campground, west over toward Shelby Lake, we pedaled along this canal --

-- and spotted this little alligator in the reeds:

It wasn't long before we found a viewing spot for an eagle's nest.  Here, Kathy (blue jacket) looks through a telescope at the nest in the upper center background:

Soon after, along our path, we saw signs for the "Fishing Weir."  We weren't sure what this meant, but soon we learned.  Here was a small breakwater that permitted pelicans, herons and humans to try their luck catching fish as the finny worked their way from one lake to another:

This was the closest we've ever gotten to a great blue heron, and we made the most of it, photographing this elusive bird as it stalked its fishy prey:

It was fascinating to watch the birds as they caught the fish. This video shows the fascinating methods the pelicans used to catch fish at the weir.

We pedaled onward, to the beach, and the Gulf State Park Pier.  Kathy bumped into a friend and couldn't resist offering him a treat:

As we climbed up onto the pier, we looked West toward the condo towers of Gulf Shores, looming over a pristine, white beach. There weren't many people on the beach today, despite the relatively warm weather and sunny skies, because it was very windy:

This cheeky fellow perched on the pier railing, hoping for a bite of bait:

The pier itself, while it had some fishermen on it, was pretty empty --

-- except for these two fishermen:

We were surprised to find this Trek-y reference at the entrance to the boardwalk for the beach -- 

-- which is gorgeous:

The dunes are building, with assistance from the humans, with the hope of holding the sea back:

We pedaled over to one of the little communities in Orange Beach to find a coffee shop we might patronize for breakfast tomorrow morning, and then found the Park's Backcountry Trail to pedal home to our campsite.  We continued on past our rig to the Nature Center, where we found these inspiring words of William Hazlitt painted on the steps up to the Nature Center:

William Hazlitt was an English essayist, drama and literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English language.  He clearly understood our relationship to nature.

In the Nature Center, we happened upon a presentation by one of the guides, who was explaining snakes and turtles to some visitors:

We enjoyed her presentation, and stayed to watch her feed some of the other snakes, but our attention was diverted by Homer, a turtle who considers the entire Nature Center his territory.  While we were standing in the main room, Homer sped over and started sniffing David's shoes:

We're not sure whether Homer was infatuated with David, or whether he smelled something interesting on David's shoes.  But, in any event, he hung out with us while we watched the Nature Center guide feeding some of the snakes.

By this time, it was Baxter Hour, and we biked back to our campsite to let Baxter and Ruby enjoy an extended outing in the grass and sunshine.  It was too short a time before we had to bring them in, but strategically-offered cat treats helped console them for having to come indoors before they wanted to.

Right now -- a wonderful Chinese tofu-and-veggy dish and we on our way to recovery from the cholesterol-and-alcohol-infused experience that was Betty's RV Park.